Reinfiltration.

"Fuck 'im, he's dead and gone now." Yeah, sure, that's what it'll end up like in a few minutes if he doesn't get any help.  Damn bastard wouldn't risk his hide for his momma if she showed up.  Can't say that out loud though, even pissing shits like him off isn't worth the risk.  Live with them, think your thoughts, but don't piss people off who you have to rely on.  Least he's an open book.

I say, "He's the one who carried the disc."  That's all, he knows what it means.  Cut's the engine and we drift for a little.

"Shit."  Yeah, shit for you, and for me, but not for Chris, and that's best for all of us in the long run.  "How're we gonna get back in."  He's phrasing a question, but he's really just thinking to himself.  Doesn't expect an answer.  I'm just the gun.  He's the boss, the maps.  He's got the sequence of guard shifts memorized and the experience organizing this type of operation.

I speak up anyway.  Worst he can say is that it won't work.  "The corpses."

"What?" Yeah, sounds like a non-sequiter.

"The horse corpses.  They have to feed those things in the cages somehow, and we did, I did, leave some of them downed on the way out.

"No way in hell those things are gonna get us back in."  So he says.  That's the knee jerk though, he always says that shit right at first.  Hates other ideas on instinct.  I got no idea how he's survived in this line of work so long, but he must have a nose for real trouble.  "Well, not just by themselves they won't."  There's the pull.  He's working on it.  I don't know the way he's gonna pull this, but it's gonna be harder.  Might be safer though.  "they have stuff to feed them in there already is the problem, and they'll be looking for Trojans."  Well that's true enough.  I have yet to find a man who looks inside dead horses, but I've yet to figure out how to hide inside a real dead horse without making it look. . .messy.  "What we need is artificial scarcity and some good reasons to bring them in quick."  That's the hard part, and he's already got it solved I bet.  He's good at his job, even if he is a bastard.  "That's why we bomb the roads, lure some of these crocs up," he splashes the water, "and give the things in there a scent to make 'em hungry."  He's grinning, all smug.  It's a mean face, getting pleasure from his oneupmanship: me and the people in the compound both.  "You feel up to killing some scientific abominations when we get dumped in?"

This is the part I know I'm good for.  "Yes, sir."  I got one in the head earlier, popped it like a cherry with sharp little fangs scattering everywhere like gooey head-grenade shrapnel.

"Good.  I'll need you to fix up the horses and start one cooking.  I've got the bombs and the crocs."  They're gators, but he doesn't care about that, no difference to him either way.  I've got some work to do.  Learning anatomy can be fun.  I'll need to make it look like we got eaten by the gators though.  Makes it more sensible for why they'd find the fire.  I wouldn't be stupid enough to bring in something that strange without some proof.  "Get to it then, quick.  That bastard won't last more than a day hiding from them in there, and then we'll have lost the disc for sure."  Maybe if I phrase it right I can get him to lose a finger for the ruse.

Experiment One.

A soft thunder followed the man as he let the sand flow out of the blue-grey pot he held at his side while he walked.  It made a circle on the floor, covering up the guidelines that had been drawn out in chalk in the hours beforehand.  The man's wrists were still sore from the painstaking attention to detail he had put into the angles that linked the complicated yet graceful pattern into one whole interconnected design.  Now he walked with an uninterested gait, almost lost in thought as he paced across the cold floor next to each line.  The sand didn't stop flowing, had reached a volume on the floor that easily tripled the capacity of the jar, but this was normal for things found in a wizard's castle.  It's plain nature fought against the ostentatious nature of some of the other practitioners of the art, as did the plain pants and shirt that the man wore, the spectacles upon his nose, and the shoes that would have seemed perfectly normal besides the fact that they did not make a sound.  When the flow cut off, the mouth of the jar tipped up just as the sand-line reconnected with itself where the man had started, the chamber was quiet.  Setting the jar aside to pick up a small dagger from a podium, the man backed away from the circle.  He frowned through his closely trimmed beard, brownish blonde like the sand on the floor.  He bit his lip a second, then with a quick glance to his hand, pricked his finger.  A toss dropped the dagger next to the jar, in the corner, clattering as it slid and bumped across and into the grey stone tiles.  Gingerly stepping around the sand, the man picked his way to the center of the design, keeping the single drop of blood perched upon his finger.  Spinning in place, slowly double checking his handiwork, he nodded to himself.  Then the drop fell, crimson and shimmering down into the sand.  Soaking out, then streaking along, the sand turned all a bright red.  Every line seemed inundated with it, staying at first the dark red of blood then lightening, and finally shining a bright white, casting a dark shadow of the podium and the jar and the dagger on the rounded walls of the chamber.  The man left no shadow, standing in the middle.  His figgure was illumined, almost seeming to glow itself with the light that shone around.  Ignition.  White flame catching on the sand to dance and flow through the circular design.  The sand below it melted into red glass, holding its form, but not its substance.  The man's frown curled up, a smile growing along with the flames.  He clapped his hands and the flames themselves melted, flowing across the floor into pools of light, some caught in the design and other bits lapping at the walls.  Some pooled around the man's shoes.  There was no podium, no jar, and no dagger.  Just the man and the circle and the glowing water.  "It worked."  His smile was beaming now.  Running to the door, he threw it open.  Down the hall, past the stairs and to another wooden door the brother of the other room's.  This one he also threw open.  Inside there was a circle just the same as the other he had left, the glowing pools, and sitting in the corner where he left them, the podium, the jar and the dagger.  "It worked!"  Now it was to the stairway, up and up and up to the top tower.  He scribbled notes, drew out careful diagrams, and smiled to himself.  "Now to figure out how to do it without a receiving circle.  Can't expect other planets to set those up for me beforehand, can I?"  It was the start to a long decade.

Rural Happening and Lifelong Lessons: Part 2

Twisting a tentacle through the water, the creature snagged Saul by his leg.  Barely able to gasp a breath of air on surfacing, the boy was drawn deeper into the water.  As the air flowed out of him, panicked, he even dropped his sword, though the unwieldy nature of the weapon would have afforded him little help against the squid.  More tentacles stretched forth, groping him, strangling him, immobilizing him beneath the murky waters.  Saul was only half aware of what creature gripped him, seeing brown, slick skin with patchy green spots and lines, shifting ever so slightly as the beast coasted along the bottom of the marsh.  He happened to glance to the side, noticing the treasure he had waded in for: A bent old fishing hook.  The way the thin, frayed fishing line fluttered in the current brought up by the squid suggested a fish that had been too big for the line that held it.  As he slipped into unconsciousness, it seemed very unfair that he had been caught for so ordinary a find.

A pair of eyes watching from the shore held the power that tipped the balance of Saul's fate that day.  Lithe steps brought her to the water and then deeper into the muck.  She had stepped out of the tree, pushing out of it as if it were the same brown mud that squished under the water, and leaving the bark exactly as it had been.  Swirling in her wake, the water itself seemed to push her body onward towards the one-sided struggle that was almost at an end.  Reaching out, he put one hand upon the squid's body, pushing it away with a forceful, yet graceful motion.  Around the boy's waist she wrapped her other arm, pulling him free of the tentacles, each dropping off lazily as the squid seemed to drift off in a daze.  Retracing her steps she dragged Saul back to the shore before letting him slump back on his back.  He had swallowed water, and she had to pause and think, head cocked to the side.  Kneeling with a hand on his chest, she made a pulling motion up towards his mouth and a stream of water splashed out his nose and half-open mouth.  Again she paused, but as his coughing started she smiled and stood.  By the time he had a chance to look up, her light, white and grey mottled skin was disappearing back into the tree, and soon followed by the bright green hair that reached halfway down her back.

There weren't supposed to be dryads out this far was all he could think as he recovered from his ordeal.  Those were only memories or from stories of those adventurous enough to go all the way to the deep marshes.  "Um, well, I don't quite know how I should go about thankin' a tree, err, dryad, but, uh, thanks."  He took a breath, waiting for something, but nothing responded but his rumbling stomach.  Blushing, he glanced back up at the sun, sinking lower towards the horizon.  With a bow toward the tree, he ran off back towards the town, sticking to the shallowest water he could.  His mother made him wash off for an hour, so his dinner was cold by the time he got to eat it.

Saul's friends didn't believe him, of course.  Tall tales like that are almost always the overactive imagination of little boys, a bit of knowledge that even kids learn early on.  He was wise enough to know his parents would think he was lying to cover up for the mess he made when he got back that day, so he didn't talk about it.  He only asked his teacher, Ms. Calthern what you'd do to thank a dryad, like in the stories that parents tell of brave warriors and grand quests.  She thought for a moment, then said that most things weren't fit for a little boy's ears, but there was a tradition in the capitol of taking a seed from the dryad's tree and planting it in an honorary place.  Saul thought about this for a few days before he finally asked his parents for a garden, and it was a weeks worth of badgering before they would let him start one.  It would be in the back, resting against the wall of the house and facing north with a good area of sun for it to sit in.

By the time he got time and friends enough to venture back out into the marsh it was nearly the end of the Holy month.  They made their way out to the tree, his friends laughing and joking and making the occasional jab at his story.  The tree wasn't quite in season to bloom, but Saul wanted to tell the dryad about the garden he was going to start, and ask for a seed once it came around to be fall.  As trees do, Saul was met with silence.  Silence until the friends he had brought with him started giggling behind him.  It was a nice day.  "I'll come back in the fall."  his smile twitching upwards as his eyebrows did the same in the center.  His friends were already heading back out, talking of the festival that would happen at the end of the summer.  A noise from the other side of the tree, a branch hitting the ground he thought.  Racing around the tree, he found the wooden sword that he had forgotten, and stuck in a crack in the wood was a seed.

Rural Happenings and Lifelong Lessons: Part 1

Saul was not in his father's shop, minding the parchments.  He was not running errands for his mother across town.  He certainly wasn't at school, though only on account of the holy month celebrating Alrea, the goddess of restoration.  All around town the men and women spent their time cultivating the land, restoring buildings, and setting parties to help ease past misgivings.  Saul, being only eight and an adventurous boy, had instead set out for the edge of town and the marshes beyond the low hills that banked the eastern side of the Pauli river.  He had tried recruiting some of his peers, but they had been whirled up in the festivities with work or play that they could or would not leave.  His company was a crude-hewn sword of wood that he had whittled in his free time the past summer despite his mother's disapproval of what she would only term 'that sort of thing'.  A few of the farmers and townsfolk on the road gave him a smile and a nod as he ran by, most of whom he knew by name from their visits to his father's scroll business.  Farmer Najit even called out to him about the fertility charm that his father had promised to have ready for today, but Saul was in a hurry and didn't know anyway, so he just called out "dunno" as he sped to his destination.

Brown dirt receded into flowing green grass that squished and sucked at his feet as he angled his way into the swampy floodplains that the river expanded into before emptying out into the sea thirty miles southwest.  The vast expanse of the swamp was his playground, and more important to a young boy, a vast swathe of unknowns that were almost certain to contain hidden treasure.  For all his time spent dozing off when Ms. Calthern went on about the history of the town and the country, he had caught the notion that at some point way early on there was a veritable wealth of ruins in the bottom of the swamp, and with the water flow that came in the spring there might be a good chance to find some of it washed up a mile or so in.  All of the best rumors talked about the overgrown heart of the swamp, deep and dark with trees as old as the town and mushrooms as large as houses, not to mention the dryads and fey folk that were supposed to inhabit that area.  He wasn't quite so bold as to go that far in, even if he had the time, but searching the shallows where the flow was greatest was well within his ability and courage.

A mile or so of walking, avoiding sinkholes like the older kids had taught him last summer when he could get an afternoon or morning away from school, staring into the muck in hopes of seeing something shiny, and watching out for blinking eyes that he would like to think led to reptilian bodies his courage and wooden sword could fight off, and a few hours had easily passed.  Nothing had caught his eye besides a few glittering pebbles, smooth after their travel down the river.  Climbing up an old, gnarled tree that pushed its way skyward he surveyed the sky and the glistening surface of the swamp alternately, shifting between the silent mystery of treasure he just knew was below him in the waters and the delightful shapes of clouds that he formed into heroic battles,  back-lit by the early afternoon sun.

Finally, stomach rumbling, seeing nothing but his own fancies, he hopped down to make his way back across the marsh towards home.  The light had shifted, and there had been a slow current by that time, so when he glanced out once more into the water he saw a faint glimmer under it, deep in a thick weedy place beside the small island the tree had accumulated.  Stepping closer, peering farther into the murk he saw a shimmer of metal, not of the stony reflections that had fooled him through the morning as he had scouted his way through to the tree.

Wooden sword propping him up in the water as he gingerly stepped towards it, grin already expanding on his tanned face, he slipped.  It wasn't the first time he had slipped today, though it was the first since he had begun to use his sword as a cane.  It was the first, however, that happened to be within hearing of a particularly mean creature of those parts.

Of the few rare creatures one would sight in the swamp, the squid was the least likely you were to actually glimpse before it did any mischief.  Mostly it would steal a catch of fish or flip a boat into the water before blending back in with it's camouflaging skin.  Little boys, however, were just the right size that a squid of great enough size, and this squid was easily a man's length without counting its tentacles, would find him a very delicious snack.

F.A.Q./Walkthrough.

Who. . .?

Am I?

How did. . .?

I know you'd say that.  I don't have time to explain.

But. . .

No, listen, there is a bomb.

What!?

Yes, a bomb.

But this is the internet.

Makes it scarier then.  Exploding in here.

It's perfectly safe though they said. . .

Yes, and they were wrong.

But there were tests and. . .

And maybe they didn't test it as thoroughly as they thought.

I don't believe you.

No?  Not when the world has screwed you over constantly, especially that time with lisa when

Don't take about that.

fine, but you get my meaning.

That there are always safety failures?

Exactly, that's why I'm telling you there's a bomb.

And you expect me to run?

No, I expect you to die valiantly trying to stop it

Why would I go off and die valiantly when I could run?

Because I could be wrong and you might actually disarm it.

Again, running?

Because you can't.

I'm not a hero.

Oh, no, I mean it's impossible for you to.  It's that big of a bomb.

Then I'll disconnect.

Try it.

I will.

Go on.

I said I am.

I'm waiting.

It's just slow, as always.

Is it?

Yes.

So you normally have to wait this long?

sometimes.

And if it keeps going?

Are you just going to keep gloating?

It seemed the fastest way to make you angry.

I'm just a bit annoyed, thanks.

Hmm, so I should try some more?

What does my anger even get you?

A diffused bomb.

how.

Well, I made it.

Then disarm it yourself.

sadly, I'm not here to do so.

Then how are you talking to

There's no time for the intricacies.

Then why did you. . .

bring it up? because you were going to get there anyway and this way I can cut you off and tell you that you have 5 minutes and it's that way.

which way?

oh, right, no gestures.  North.

does it look like I have a compass?

towards the glowey egg thing.

The strip club?

Yes.

A bomb in the strip club.

Well, the internet is for porn, as the masses like to say.

And it's powerful enough to level the place, somehow?

Metaphorically.  Or at least something of that magnitude.

I don't even know what it looks like or what to do to it.

Well, that's why I'm talking to you, isn't it.

Is it?

Yes.

I don't want to do this.

But you're walking.

But I am going to against my better judgement.

Good.

You are kind of an asshole voice, aren't you?

I try, the last time this happened I found I was too polite.

Yeah?

Yes.  The bomb managed to explode.

Funny, I didn't hear about it in the news or anything.

Yes, well, it was a long time ago.

The virtual reality stuff has been out for three years, tops.

Length is a matter of perception, also, you lack the facts.

Shouldn't there be a bouncer outside here.

You would expect that.

I would, that's why I asked.

Why should I know?

Because you are annoyingly cryptic and seem to think you know everything.

If I did, I would be able to get this done so much faster, that and I would have been here myself.

So you don't know why.

No, other than there is scheduled to be an explosion of a very large magnitude in, lets see, 3 minutes now.

Great, sounds very exciting.

I should hope not.

Yeah well, I take it the floaty sphere is it?

Yes.

And it's a bomb.

And this place is deserted.

It seems so.

So I just go up and touch it or. . .

NO.

I can't touch it?

No.

So what am I supposed to do?

That is where you and I completely line up in knowledge.

Great, maybe if I throw a rock at it.

You have a rock?

No.  I have a shoe though.

Okay, try it.

Throwing.

It seems to have been absorbed.

And has been slowly growing larger, yes.

So that's the timer then.

The width?

I would guess so.

It sped up a little on absorbing the shoe.

Yes, I see that.

How much time left.

Less than a minute, probably.

Great, I'm gonna touch it.

You'll just get absorbed.

Yes, or blown up later.

When you put it like that, go ahead.

Exactly.

Are you sure you don't have any better ideas?

Of course not, I'm just a random guy.

Well, not random.

Here goes nothing.

In Session.

Time comes and goes like a tide on the ocean, but the small steel sphere still shines on what might colloquially be considered the shore of our universe.  It retains that aspect of steel, the ability to have size, because of the lapping constancy that washes up every so often to mold it to a form that is moderately comprehensible by man.  The spherical nature of the thing as well as its emission of light is a constant anchored in the just outside our universe that it happens to share with us.  Not in the sense that both have these qualities, but more in the sense that every instance that it gets covered and washed in this universe, a little bit of light and shpericalness wash off into the universe.  Conveniently, since it doesn't have a concept of time in itself, all of that came pouring in with relation to our universe in a very strange stream that started at approximately time zero for all ability for humanity to see it and continues on into time x, at which point there will be no ocean of universe and only a divot in the multiverse from which we evaporated.  A size-less divot.  Metaphors.

We might not classify the sphere as life, we being biased to our own methods of moving and procreating and in fact most things involving doing.  Thinking about movement in an object without time, truly without time and not stationary as it progresses through time, makes these things hard to really observe.  When our form of reality does wash over it, it sometimes thinks about us.  In general, not really about the bit of mold on a bity little dust speck circling a small, comparatively, nuclear reactor that exists somewhere indistinct within the oceanyness that it sees as the universe.  It thinks more about the concept of water and how it washed away bits of the sphere, letting them spread out and be similar entities.  It also feels the way that it has a composition of atoms in a certain pattern whenever it gets covered.  It doesn't quite know how to describe the way it feels when it just knows.  Knowing is the state it mostly exists in, a complete state that classifies things from its inception until its destruction by a large, mostly indescribable object in a non-linear, non temporal point that somehow happens both after and during our own tidal-universal life.  When it thinks, all the wetness washing over it, it loses the knowing and gains the process of thinking which is different.  It goes from one state to another, and then rather circuitously by fate returns back to the same state it began at.  The fact that the order these happen in and the order that we seem them happen in does not line up is not a thing that really occurs to it until from our perspective it doesn't/won't exist.  If it did happen to notice humanity as it sits now, it might give us some temporal spoilers from the last time it had watched us in our future.  It doesn't, and couldn't talk if it did, but from the general pattern of thoughts it has, it would be most enjoyable for it to do so.

A certain clump of life that existed close enough to the tidal edge tried talking to the sphere, for their own definition of talking and came back with a very peculiar view of themselves in the past after being stranded on the surface of the sphere when the tide receded.  They then went on to populate and create their own race back to the point where they did it again, recursively.  They also stop existing both about halfway through the existence of the universe and also near the end of when the other alien object destroys the sphere on collision, living on in a warped reality for quite a long deal longer than most precedented cases, of which there are n+1 in the multiverse.  This is phenomena humans have yet to overlook in the course of their stay as a pattern.

Any questions, class, no?  Well then, you're free to go to lunch after you close your history books, be back in this universal constant for the next class in five million years, earth time and we will begin to observe the reason we study this material as coursework to prepare you for life in the multiverse.  Class dismissed.

Even the sun shall sink.

Darkness dodged in and out, biting at the glowing form that radiated light: from his pale armor, to his dappled wings, to the skin that luminesced just enough that you could only get a general shape out of, like when you look at a light-bulb out of the corner of your eye.  His sword shone too, but in a much clearer, calmer light, letting the details of the blade's runed edges shine a dull silver into the darkness that was all around.

Sareliel paced forward, the darkness moving like a crowd ringing him, always giving him room to walk ahead while closing in behind him.  Once more he felt around at the straps that held his armor on, checking each one with his free left hand, blindly, as his eyes scoured the empty void of information.  Hell was a dark place for an angel to walk.  It was also silent.

In the first week there had been chaos when the first legion invaded, bright lights dropping into the abyss.  Many an angel had fallen, overcome by the claws and the horns and the black flames that flickered on the tepid pools of blood that scattered the plain and guiding only demonic eyes with light unseen.  Many more demons had lain dead, floating in their own gore and handiwork.  They didn't stay dead as would things of a more mortal nature, a nature that plagued neither angels nor demons.  The angels were immortal, perfect beings.  When they fell they had but wait until light fell once more upon them, before the process of rejuvenation could start.  The demons recuperated differently, letting their parts slither off different ways to find new companions to form up with and creating more grotesque figures than before.

Now they waited at the edges of the light, at the edges of Sareliel's light as he paced a perimeter around the camp that had been set up where the abyss had been pierced, glancing towards the interior or the camp every so often.  In the center was a rock, black as the great cavern that had no limit, but to the touch of light blacker than the grey and red stone that covered the floor.  It held upon it a portal, reminiscent of a dish of white fish-meat, still writhing back and forth every once in a while yet never quite escaping its basin.  Then he looked past the portal to the darkness on the other side, through the camp that was scattered as if with stars that littered just a small portion of the night while the rest stayed cloudy.  Turning his back on the darkness wasn't wise, but it was a comfort to see his brothers and sisters standing silent watch.  Perhaps the Archangel in charge would mount a search party to bring him back if he were overtaken there. It was not death he had to fear down here, only disgust and torment.  Even then, fear didn't touch him through the radiant white light that pulsated like spears from his body.

No demon wanted to fling themselves at the angel's camp now, not when the most vengeful had had their fill, not when the more patient ones had not yet figured out their purpose.  It was not talked about among the ranks, first because they did not talk amongst themselves unless necessary, feeling it a vulgar thing to let any of the stale air enter their mouths, and second because none but the archangel truly knew.  They were but followers, loyal and true and just followers who upheld the purpose they were given in serving.

And then there was movement.  A subtle black against black that flitted past his peripheral vision taunting him.  He turned towards it, pacing forward to let the light shine on his prey.  Not fast enough to catch the full form, just the feathery tip of a wing, much different in shape from the leathery demon affectation, but just as colored as the dark pit itself.  Sareliel had naught to lose but his quarry and so he followed.  The soldiers of the first legion were given free enough reign, told only to create a camp.  It was instinctual to form ranks and set a patrol, but it was not a mandated order, just habit.  Some other luxuriant figure would move in to take his place as they noticed him dart off.  He was of course chasing a demon of some sort, perhaps one with a captured angel that needed to be rekindled into life.  Understanding was assured, almost as much as victory in his chase was.

As if the plate armor was nothing his wings picked him up lifting the burden and allowing his steps to float across the bleak, black ground in pursuit, gaining centimeter by centimeter upon the winged figure.  The wings, black through and through led down to a broad back, smooth where the average demon had spikes or scars.  Black skin and black straight hair down to a faded white sash that held as greying of a robe from the waist down.  Snaking out from beneath it came a long and thin tail ending in a circular screw-pattern of barbs.  Once the lights were but a glimmer in the background the figured halted in his flight, almost as graceful as the angel in he deceleration, a skidding sound of claw against stone heard from his feet matched by the metal boots lightly clanking to a stop with the aid of a hard flap of white wings.

"He is not to be found here, angel.  Tell them that."

"You speak in riddles, minion of Satan, why relay your devious words to others?"

"Because we can not follow one who is not here.  I am minion to none, now."

"He has been locked here for eternity and more, he must be here."

"And yet he is not.  You will say I lie.  You are not burdened with the fear your great leader is, of that I am sure.  I would taste it if it were so."  A black tongue flicked to the side at the punctuation of the demon's statement.

"You think right that I would not trust your word.  I should cut you down where you stand, immediately."

A hollow, cracked laugh escaped from the unseen face of his conversationalist.  "Oh, but you will get a chance in time, if you want to.  No, what you really come here looking for is something to do in your spare time.  This place unsettles you and if there were any clue or thing to do to distract you from its emptiness you would have taken that before talking to me." Slowly the demon turned, half facing Sareliel, but gazing off into the distant darkness with pure black eyes, squinting a bit in the light.  "I say to you again he is not here.  If he were to come back to his bondage, we would know him, if he were to have left somehow, we would have felt it.  One of these is true, but both can not be since we can not feel his presence anymore."  The demon's face hardened into a scowl.  "This has driven some of us to joy and pleasure.  They are sure that if he found a way out, so may we.  They think this is the dawn of a new era, or at least the premonition of one."  Turning once more the demon stared straight into Sareliel's eyes.  The wide, black pools in the demon's face vibrating ever so slightly.  "A few of us are very afraid of what is to come.  What has come.  What turmoil will once again drive mad the order of the world."  A shiver passed through the ebony skin.  "The war was over, we thought, but now we see that it may have only begun, and this scares us, for if this is not our punishment, what more is there in store for us?"

Sareliel took a step back, seeing the black eyes moisten and two parallel glistening streaks fall down the surface of the demon's face.  He turned and flew back towards the glow of the camp, towards duties.  Behind him he barely made out a whisper.  "He is not here. . ."

You should Fear Werewolves.

Fear the were-wolves.  Really, you might think that a bit of magic, some success in dealing with the everyday chump sorcerer is something to be proud of, and in some ways it is, but were-wolves are without a doubt a league above that.  Let me tell you a story.  It's a good story, got its ups and downs and even a sappy ending that makes you feel good inside in its own way.  It also has some real bummers of moments and powerful horrors that you'll remember as you go about the business when we split at the end of the apprenticeship.

Were-wolf trouble is rare enough, but you need a good background for when you end up dealing with it.  Hence the story.  It starts with a teenage brat like you, yeah I just called you a brat, get over it.  He had been going 'round these parts and keepin' law all under people's noses as was the style of the time, and continues to be by our regulations.  You read that book: first rule of street-walking is to blend in.  Anyway, he was good.  Never any investigations by those not in the know, never any nasties that managed to get away and hold grudges.  He was doin' well for himself, likely to be promoted in fact.  Local coordinator took a shining to him, had him over for suppers every other week.  He put in a lot of hours those days, so everyone knew him.  Some of them for bein' part of the neighborhood and contributin' to the economy, others for the help he did in our sector, the magical one.  Thought he was near untouchable.  Only person who managed to get a scratch on him had been his teacher, and she'd moved on to another precinct a few years back, comfortable to leave the area to him.

Anyway, as things eventually happen, somebody went missing.  He looked into it, but not much came to light other than this guy, Otis, had just stopped opening the bakery in the mornings, so no fresh bread, or even stale bread after a while.  It wasn't like it was some hobo who was passing through.  That can be a problem if they're feeding some sort of malicious sprite or some street-mage isn't being careful and manages to get the police on his trail before we can stop him messing in blood rituals.  Coulda been a normal type crime.  Not our jurisdiction, so we'd just let the police get into it.  If we track down every one of those the police start sniffing at us, and then we get a reputation.

The kid had a hunch, thought that it was a bit strange.  Had a nose for magic that one.  Anyway, he's wandering around the town, just kinda letting an aura out, seein' if everything is in place.  Doesn't find squat.  Police don't find anything 'neither.  No clues in the house, none in the shop under it, and nothin' in the street.

Few weeks go by; he's had his hands busy meanwhile with some pixie dust smuggling, standard summer stuff, when outa the blue poor Otis just shows back up.  Opens his shop in the morning, goes about business as usual.  Tells the people that it was all an unplanned trip to visit the family.  Now Otis was a friend of the kid's, he'd go in and get a cinnamon roll most mornings along with some coffee at the shop one over.  Not an in the know friend as it were, about as normal as they come and not superstitious either.  Now when the kid goes in to get his roll the day after Otis is back he feels something.  Not a big thing, mind you, just a little speck of a difference in the aura.  It happens, as you know, from time to time.  Somethin' in the air or some sloppy magic leaves some residue and it gets picked up.  Still, when Otis got back, more disappearences start happening.  Butcher down the street goes missing one night, wife doesn't know anything, gets the police involved.  They were about to take a trip to visit their kids down on the coast the next day, so it was mighty strange.  'Nother guy after half a week, goes missing from a back alley, a known dealer, but nothin' that gets him too hot as to get picked up.  Part of a finger left, lotsa blood.

The kid's been on the lookout these days, doesn't hear anything, but he's pretty sure it's his turf and his type of problem.  Does some legwork, combs the place at night and doesn't find anything for more than a month.  More bits of bodies pile up, more missing people, some without any evidence, some with a bunch scatered all over.  Police are real pissed, gotta work hard and get nothin' done.  Few of them go missing as well, but no real clues to go on.  All his normal methods keep failing him.

One day the kid goes to get his cinnamon roll and he notices Otis' aura has kept changing a bit.  Was pretty sure that it wasn't connected, but he figures he'll check the place out after dark, do some stealthy snooping.  Pretty easy to see where it's going here, a'int it?  Well, it's worse than you know.  He gets in, decides to check the cellar.  He's an old hand at this criminal type stuff, helped him through a lot of the times.  Walks down in there and sees the refrigerator room.  Not a big one, bakery didn't need too big of one, but it was respectable.  Anyway, he goes in there and a stench just pours on out.  Bacteria was half dead, but the full dead carcasses still left a putrid odor that was worse 'n anything he'd smelled before.  Didn't take much to figure out where the corpses were going.  He shut that door up tight and figured he'd need to explore the rest of the place first, make sure it was safe.  Went up through the first story and into the second, nobody was home.  Everything all dark and silent.  No people there at all.  Finds the ladder to the roof and gets up there only to find himself face to face with the were-wolf this story been leadin' up to.

Otis under it all, but all furry with a snout and big blood-soaked teeth.  Not much in the way of humanity when they're like that but that doesn't mean they aren't cunning.  Would get caught more if that were the case.  Only had a torso that time, musta ate the rest of the body when he killed the girl, left some too he found out later.  Otis goes and drops the body as he crouches down low, seein' the kid.  He knows the kid don't have time to outrun him, most things don't.  So he's makin' sure he gets a read on his new prey.  This one saw him comin', unlike most of the previous ones, so this one's a bit different.  Not 'cause Otis knew him, mind.  Lotsa his good customers had gone missing in that month, some better and closer than the kid.

Anyway, the kid's good, manages to get back down to the second floor inside before Otis sinks them big bloody teeth into his arm.  Thinks he's still in control, getin' the thing back out of sight so that he can resolve this all quiet, leave it as a mystery on the local news.  Doesn't realize that he's in a big mess.  Not 'till he can't get his arm free.  Vice-grip in that bite, hard to slip out of.  Kid manages to stay outa the claws, keeps his belly from offering up some steaming organs as dessert.  Hasn't gotten loud yet, but he's holding back a scream.  Pulls in some magic, a real feat of concentration to charge up given the situation and pops off some lightning in the astral.  This scorches it some, but the deal with were-wolves is that they have an obscene amount of magic in 'em.  Not seen much when they're human cause it's all goin' toward keeping the fur and teeth and claws in check, all bundled up as just a speck in their aura.  When they let it all out it covers 'em up like armor, thick and heavy.  Kid still manages to get his arm free in Otis' shock.  Hadn't gone after anybody who really knew any combat magic, least not before they could fire it off.  Gets him mad, takes away a bit of the inhibition.  They were in the bederoom by then, glass doors and curtains out onto the balcony.  Otis rushes the kid, gets a hold of him and they both go crashing through.  Not too bad of cuts 'cause of the curtains, but a big sound and enough force to break the railing.  Midair they break up, much as they can all tangled up in the curtains and hit the ground.

Police are on patrol tonight, had been for a while, and they start gettin' calls from the neighbors.  Woulda said they were pranks but there were enough that the car got there pretty quick, and backup soon after.  Kid's just trying to stay alive by now, pretty drained by then what with the spells and the bite and all the dodging.  Plus he'd picked up some scratches and cuts and a big bruise from the fall.  Otis wan't that great, but he woulda won out in the long term if the police hadn't started puttin' rounds in the thing.  Still took another half hour 'fore Otis really snuffed it; got some hits in on a few officers, one of 'em died.

Kid had to really pull some control after that.  Called in some mind experts from higher up to deal with it.  Spent half a year before he couldn't feel an ache somewhere from it, first month just bein' monitored for infection mostly.  Lucky to have gotten out alive.

See, when the higher ups put some effort into it, they traced him back.  Seems like an enterprising were-wolf had found him out one night and decided to expand his clan.  It was somewhere out in a rural place.  Otis managed to get away, got himself home.  He was sneaky, even for a were-wolf.  Still didn't know how to stay low-key, fly under the radar.  Didn't get trained to deal with the urges.  Maybe he just liked them so much he gave in.  Only reason they found the place he got taken so fast was because the pack moved.  Sudden end to missing sheep and cows, a few farmers left town quickly.

That's the hard part.  He was really only one wolf, a lone wolf.  Took a trained professional in a fight and would have, should have won.  If it were two or three there, each of them more used to things, better at keeping snooping mages like us off the scent or just luring us in in a trap, well, that kid wouldn't have made it.  Anyway, that's how I got those arm scars you were asking about that first week when you were just some newbie in training.  It's a good story, a sad story, and an important story to remember.  You should fear were-wolves.